


Destroyer of Hope

by PandoraTheExplorer



Series: Month of Drabbles Challenge 2018 [21]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, everyone has one of two opinions on eridan:, no one appreciates a morally gray character nowadays, the ericolloquy, whiny dudebro or uwu baby who did nothing wrong, youve heard of vriscourse now get ready for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 06:58:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16090427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PandoraTheExplorer/pseuds/PandoraTheExplorer
Summary: Eridan Ampora holds on to the hope that some day, things will get better.





	Destroyer of Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Day 28 of my 2018 Month of Drabbles Challenge.

Your name is Eridan Ampora, and you love a princess.

Feferi Peixes is the most perfect girl on Alternia. You think she can stand to use her authority as a fuchsia blood more often, but otherwise, you enjoy every aspect of her. You enjoy her kindness to her subordinates-including you. You enjoy her sense of responsibility towards protecting trollkind. You are in love with the excited gleam in her eyes whenever she tells you about her plans for when she becomes Empress.

(You think she can work a little more culling of lowbloods into her plans, but she never listens when you suggest it.)

You are so in love with Feferi Peixes that you are willing to do anything for her. You give up your plans of genocide because Feferi wants to coddle the trolls that you want to kill. You offer to hunt to feed her luscus because Feferi would be upset if the monster lost control and killed all the landdwellers. You even let yourself be in a pale relationship with her, the girl you love with the deepest shade of red in existence, because you know that pale is what she feels for you.

Still, you hold on to the hope that one day, she will see you not as a moirail, but as a matesprit.

~

Feferi says she loves you neither as a matesprit nor a moirail.

She says that the two of you should start seeing other people. You say you understand, and you try to understand. You really do. But who else can you see, if not Feferi? Vriska never took your kissmessitude seriously anyway, and all the other trolls playing this game can barely put up with you. Feferi was the only person you had-the only person who wanted you-and now even she doesn’t want you anymore.

You isolate yourself on your planet, killing the angels that you’re not sure you’re supposed to be killing. The other players of the game message you, asking how you are, inviting you to their planets, and things like that. You refuse all of their invitations, even Feferi’s. If she-if any of them-truly cares about you, they will see past your rejection and come to you. You want Feferi to visit you on your planet for once, and you can be emotionally distant like you used to be and she can comfort you like she used to do and you will discuss your feelings and become the reddest of matesprits.

Of course, she never does. You end up getting a message from her telling you about her new matespritship with Sollux. The next time you see her is on Sollux’s planet, when you duel him for the favor of the girl he took from you.

The look of disappointment from Feferi hurts when Sollux inevitably kicks your ass. Still, you hold on to the hope that someday Feferi will see you and realize what she’s missing out on.

~

You do win the game, but a demon comes and traps you on a meteor with the rest of your cranky teammates for what seems like the rest of eternity. Sollux found another game session in the universe you created, and you message the humans because why not. Maybe one of these new players would give more of a shit about you than your team.

(They don’t. You are starting to wonder what everyone’s problem is. Can’t they see that you deserve their attention?)

Aradia’s robot explodes and Sollux is devastated. Tavros runs to who knows where on his new robot legs. Nepeta and Equius disappear to a private room of the meteor to have another one of the “feelings jam” sessions that you wish you can still do with Feferi. (Why do you want that? Don’t you like her red-ways?) Karkat switches between yelling at your teammates and yelling at the humans over Trollian. Kanaya takes pity on you and makes you a wand that she says is magic but you know runs on science. Terezi and Vriska mess with each other and with the humans that you’ve lost interest in. Gamzee is in a perpetually dazed state from the sopor slime that’s slowly running out. Feferi spends all her time with Sollux now, doing for him what she used to do for you as your moirail-strange, really, if they’re really matesprits like they said.

As for you, you are left alone with your thoughts and hopes for the future. You are the Prince of Hope, the prophecies on Derse said. You have the final authority on everyone’s hope, just like Feferi used to have the final authority on everyone’s lives in Alternia. But that means you are also responsible for everyone’s hope, just like Feferi was responsible for the lowbloods. If there’s anything you learned from Feferi, any way you can still keep her favor, it’s that you must keep up the morale.

You have to hold on to the hope that someday, the twelve of you will be safe.

~

As you practice your science, you notice the voices of something beyond the meteor. The voices sound not unlike the glubs of Feferi’s long-dead luscus. You’ve only ever heard small, muted glubs from Feferi’s luscus before, but you can tell the glubs of these creatures are basically the same. You’ve heard Feferi’s luscus enough to understand these glubs. Since you have nothing better to do, you listen to what they have to say.

They tell you much of what you already know. They say that you would be so much happier if only the people you love would love you back. They say that you have so much untapped potential that could have saved everyone, if only this story had been fairer.

The creatures tell you of their own powers-powers that can help you reach your full potential, if only you would let it. They show this to you by telling you to try out your wand again. The white beams of science that shoot out are brighter than what you could manage before. They say they can give you more. They can give you so much more, as long as you’re willing to give yourself up to them. 

You ask them if they’ve offered this to anyone else before, and why. The creatures are offering you power because they’re bored, that’s all. It’s just like when you offered the human witch your gun-you were hoping to see what she’d do with it and if she’d appreciate you for it. They say that a human from the other session is considering it. And Feferi, who understands their glubs better than you do, was of course their first choice to give their power. She, however, refused and made a different deal with them instead.

You wonder if you should take their power. As you listen to their glubs, you realize that these creatures are powerful beyond your comprehension. They are more powerful than you or any of the other trolls or even the humans. If you can have the power they have, maybe you can defeat the demon who trapped you here. Feferi refused their power, but you have always been the one to pick up the slack for the things she didn’t have the guts to do. Maybe if you defeat Jack Noir, she will love you again like she ought to.

And yet they say that there is someone else-someone commanding Jack Noir-that is killing them. What kind of power must someone like that have to be able to kill these creatures? Will Jack Noir have those powers, too?

You ask them what they’re going to do about it, and they say that they don’t know. They used to be just like you, they say-ignorant players of a doomed game turned foolish with hope. It’s been so long since they’ve lost their own game, and there was nothing left for them once they lost. They say that they are starting to wonder if beings like they still deserved to survive, after all this time.

You realize that you’re starting to wonder, too. You and your friends worked your asses off for a home that you will never get to live in, and now you are floating through empty space, listening to voices in the Furthest Ring while your leader makes pointless promises and try to salvage a doomed situation.

There is no more hope, you realize. There is no point on escaping on this meteor when the only place you can escape to is the cold embrace of death. There is no point in finding out who cares about you when you already know the answer will be “no one.” There is no point in continuing the troll race when the only things you have left to continue it with are eleven sorry remnants of a once proud civilization.

As the Prince of Hope, you declare to the creatures of beyond that all hope has been lost. They agree. You turn down their offer of more power for the moment. There is no point in trying to be stronger than Jack Noir if you’re not going to fight him.

You devise a plan. The troll species is doomed, and you are doomed. But the least you can do is to die with dignity like a proper violet blood. You are going to help Jack Noir kill you friends, and make sure they are put out of their misery as quickly and as mercifully as possible. When Jack Noir has no more use for you, you will find your way to an end of your choosing and die with pride.

And what of Feferi? The landdwellers can stand to be quietly massacred, but Feferi is too good for that fate. Even at the end of the world, she deserves a chance to choose her own end like you. She deserves to go with you. You once preserved the survival of trollkind together. Now you can herald its end together, too.

You let go of the hope that your species will survive-there wasn’t much to hold onto in the first place. You do, however, tentatively hold onto the hope that Feferi will accept your offer.

~

Feferi does not accept your offer. You wonder if part of it was because she was sitting next to her new matesprit when you made it, but you think she’s just that hopesul about your future.

Why doesn’t she understand? All of you are going to die, one way or another. You are offering her a way out. A way to die with what little dignity the two of you have left.

Sollux challenges you to another duel and you channel the small amount of science from the creatures in the Furthest Ring that you can control. Sollux is slammed to the wall and you wonder if he is dead. Shit. You’ve hated him for a long time, but you didn’t think you were going to kill him this soon.

Feferi screams in rage and charges at you with her trident pointed at your heart. You point your want at her and prepare to defend yourself. You need to shoot a clean burst of science at her-not enough to kill but enough for you to stun and get away. You can’t kill Feferi. Not here. Not now.

Science-maybe you should start calling it magic like it is-is an unstable force. The difference between the amount of magic needed to kill and the amount needed to harm is a tiny difference that needs exact precision to control.

And, as it turns out, that control is something you don’t have.

Feferi gasps in pain and falls to the ground. A gaping hole forms in the middle of her torso, where her heart used to be. Staring at your dead moirail, (moirail? Matesprit? Friend? Enemy?) you feel something inside of you snap.

Feferi was the only troll on this goddamn meteor you loved-the only one you truly loved. She was the only thing you had left.

And you just killed her.

What was the point of all of this, again? You wanted to join Jack Noir so you and Feferi can die with dignity, wasn’t it? It’s too late for Feferi now-she was just killed in a desperate attempt for her favor by someone who you are starting to doubt ever deserved her in the first place.

In fact, you know you never deserved Feferi. You never deserved anyone’s love, and yet you still had the audacity to reject people when they gave you your attention. How can someone as shameful as you deserve to die a proud death?

No. it’s better to just end all of trollkind here. You call to the creatures of beyond and ask them to give you the power. To give you all of it. You are going to kill every troll on this godforsaken meteor, and then yourself, when the time comes. Forget about pride, or dignity, or whatever the fuck used to be important to you back when Alternia was still there and you still belonged.

You destroy the egg that was going to hatch a new lineage of trolls and the girl who controlled the egg. Trollkind doesn’t belong in this chaotic world anymore. It has no place and no right to exist. The most merciful thing you can do now is let it all…end.

You let go of any shred of hope you had left. There is no more hope. Not in a place like this and not for someone like you.

~

Kanaya-who you thought you’d killed, snaps your wand and swings her chainsaw at you. The weapon cuts through your body like soft kelp, and you collapse to the ground.

As your life drains away with your blood, you think you can see a girl with wide fins and curly hair framing her face. She blinks her bright fuchsia eyes at you, and offers you a hand.

You give a soft smile and reach out for her, holding onto the hope that in this life after life, things will be better.

**Author's Note:**

> Did Eridan "deserve" to be with Feferi even though she wasn't interested? No, he had a crush but Feferi doesn't owe him anything.  
> Did Eridan deserve to live to act 6 compared to the other trolls who died? No, he killed someone and was generally a less pleasant person than people like Tavros or Nepeta.  
> Do I still like his character despite all this? Yes, because I am willing to admit when a character I like has done bad things.


End file.
